Challenging the Academically Adrift: A New Decision-Making Tool to Help Improve Student Commitment to Academic Preparation

Abstract

This paper describes research in progress concerning the development and use of a newly created tool, the Decision-Making Grid, which was designed to teach undergraduate management students to develop and use metacognitive regulation skills to improve decision-making by requiring students to construct improved decision-making models in a boundedly rational manner. When students are required to use the metacognitive skills of planning, monitoring and evaluating focused on important and relevant decisioncriteria, students are better positioned to commit to appropriate academic preparation. The null hypothesis proposing that there would be no variance in means in the measure of commitment to academic preparation was rejected using data from three academic years of data. Qualitative analyses provide evidence that the Grid can help students commit to academic preparation.